We suppose the same could be said of any top cop in an urban area, but Peoria Police Chief Steven Settingsgaard certainly seemed to make his fair share of headlines, from the moment he walked in the door by way of Milwaukee in 2005 right up to the point he walks out next month. Settingsgaard is leaving City Hall but staying in Peoria, working as North American security director at Caterpillar.

He gave the locals a head’s up on that score when he said not long after arriving that “I didn’t come to Peoria to make friends and join the country club. I came to Peoria to make a difference. If that requires that I be unpopular with certain segments of this city, I will be.” As he exits, he can consider it mission accomplished with some of those segments, though the tone has become a bit less brash: “I have always tried to do what I thought was right, based upon the circumstances that were before me,” Settingsgaard says now. “Sure I have made mistakes but they have been made in good faith and in pursuit of doing what is right and changing this department for the better.”

To a significant degree, Settingsgaard’s legacy revolves around the prospects of the “Don’t Shoot” program he helped initiate and implement. He expresses pride in that, saying “we are engineering a culture shift in the way we police the city, focusing on the most violent gang members and trying to save lives and change lives.” Others would suggest the jury is still very much out on “Don’t Shoot.” Settingsgaard acknowledges it’s “undone.” Still, we can’t fault the effort in a community that has witnessed too much gang- and drug-fueled violence, not that Peoria is unique in that regard.

Yet there have been local declines in all major crime categories but murder in this last decade, not that we’d dump the bad — or the better, for that matter — behavior of others in any police department’s or police chief’s lap. What we do expect from police are arrests after the fact. Certainly we’ve witnessed some competent police work over the years — apparently resolving the string of home invasions last year on the city’s northwest side, taming hot spots, for example — interrupted by lapses here and there that resulted in criticism regarding abuse of power and police overreach.

There were times when we questioned the chief’s familiarity with the Constitution. Twittergate comes to mind, of course, which promises a federal lawsuit from the ACLU on First and Fourth Amendment grounds. There also was talk of forcible blood draws from DUI suspects a few years back. Cavalier attitudes toward the Constitution are not exactly unheard of in law enforcement, where playing by the rules can make their job of getting the bad guys who don’t play by any rules more difficult. It hasn’t earned Peoria rave reviews nationwide.

Page 2 of 2 - We still question the judgment in posting the names and photos of people arrested on prostitution-related charges on the city’s “shaming” Web site, even after acquittal. The manpower and resources devoted to staking out a then-councilman suspected of solicitation, a misdemeanor, were over the top. The crackdown on jaywalking did not win a lot of fans. The effort to root out and stop leaks to the press — we’d call them whistleblowers, he’d call them something else — strained relationships for a time, though in this page’s experience, the chief was responsive and professional regarding inquiries. He seemed to communicate well with neighborhood leaders.

Settingsgaard did face a very challenging fiscal environment, which by and large he confronted in some creative ways that, despite council-instituted staff and other budget cuts, did not seem to noticeably compromise public safety. His Armadillo program — parking a modified Brink’s truck with surveillance equipment — in front of nuisance drug properties won praise and emulation. That is contrasted by management style issues that included occasional inattention to administrative detail, which manifested itself most famously in the chief’s temporary loss in a Kroger parking lot of a sensitive, confidential report detailing the findings of an internal investigation into allegations of inappropriate liberties being taken with tax dollars last year.

Today Settingsgaard expresses great confidence in and loyalty to the “exceptional” staff he’s put together, though he endured tests there, as well, between multiple instances of officer misconduct — with sometimes curious discipline — and a union no-confidence vote in 2008. Last year saw conflicts with some council members. Settingsgaard has proven himself a survivor. He’s outlasted all but one chief in the modern era — only Allen Andrews served longer, 18 years over three different stints — and he leaves on his own terms.

The announcement of his departure did catch us by surprise a bit. But the time comes for more than a few managers when a shift in employer circumstances and allegiances — it’s been a tough year in a job difficult by definition — and a better opportunity for the employee himself coincide. We wish Steve Settingsgaard well in his move from public to private sector, and look forward to new and independent leadership at Peoria’s police department.